


Precocious

by avantegarda



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kids, bless him, mags is a tiny little music geek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-07 01:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18862828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avantegarda/pseuds/avantegarda
Summary: Every great artist is blessed with curiosity.





	Precocious

Tiranel had never cared much for the city. Her family came from the far south of Aman, and though her work as a musician took her and her troupe to many parts of the continent, she was always eager to return home to the warm and laid-back village in which she had grown up. Tirion, which always seemed pale and chilly (as were many of the people in it), was not particularly to her liking.

But a job was a job, and there was no point in complaining, not when one was being paid so well and being fed from the High King’s own kitchen.

They’d finally been allowed to take a brief rest after nearly two hours of playing, and Tiranel filled a glass to the brim with prohibitively expensive Vanyarin wine, draining the entire thing in one gulp. Her throat was parched and her fingers were sore, and she harbored a desperate hope that King Finwë’s guests would soon be overcome with exhaustion and allow her and her troupe (consisting mainly of her cousins Romandil and Vanamirë, as well as a few friends from back home) to escape to the pub a bit early.

It wasn’t until Tiranel had gotten halfway through her second glass of wine that she realized that they had been joined in the gallery by a very small boy, staring at them with awe and not saying a single word. He was perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old, with curly dark hair and wide, long-lashed eyes, dressed in a richly embroidered blue tunic and a silver circlet. The fine clothes and excellent posture marked him as an aristocrat’s son, though it was rare to see any of the nobility in the musician’s gallery. Respected artists they might have been, Tiranel thought wryly, but at a party like this they were still very much considered the help.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked, a bit more sharply than she meant to. “Are you lost?”

“I wanted to see your instruments,” the little boy said dreamily. “They sounded so lovely from downstairs, I  _ had  _ to come and see. Do you mind?”

Tiranel narrowed her eyes. “Do your parents know you are here, my love?”

“I won’t be missed,” the boy said with a shrug. “Father will be busy showing off my older brother to all his friends, since he’s so handsome and clever, and Mother will be occupied with the new baby. If I’m back in less than an hour no one will even have noticed I left.”

“Ah, let the lad stay for a bit, Tiranel,” chuckled her cousin Romandil, balancing a mug of ale and a rebec rather precariously in his arms. “No harm in a bit of innocent curiosity. What’s your name, sonny?”

The boy hesitated, before saying firmly, “Laurë.”

“Laurë! A fine name. Have you ever played a rebec before?”

“Just a bit,” Laurë said, rubbing his freckled nose. “I’ve taken music lessons since I was eight but we haven’t done much with the rebec yet. Just harp, lute, flute, and some drums but those are a bit boring, honestly.”

“I resent that,” quipped Vanamirë from the corner where she sat with her elegantly carved drum. “Drums are utterly integral. What’s music without an underlying rhythm?”

“Well, I suppose so, but they’re not so difficult really, are they? All you do is hit them at the right time, and that’s easy.”

Tiranel narrowed her eyes in surprise. “ _ How  _ old are you?”

“Fourteen. Why?”

“Because…” Tiranel shook her head. “No reason, really. Romandil, give me that thing, you can’t play and drink at the same time. Laurë, come sit next to me, I can show you some of the basics and maybe you can join us for a few songs.”

Romandil groaned, handing over his instrument. “Tiranel, darling, I thought we were meant to be taking a break.”

“ _ You  _ are.  _ I  _ am educating the next generation of artists. Now hush and drink up, there’s a good lad.”

 

Little Laurë accompanied them for six tunes, switching between the rebec (which he picked up quickly) and Tiranel’s lute (which he played beautifully), occasionally singing along to any lyrics he knew in a sweet and surprisingly loud voice. Perhaps, Tiranel reflected, if his parents didn’t come to fetch him she would adopt him. Having a child prodigy in the troupe certainly couldn’t be bad for business. Especially as he was quite adorable.

She was so focused on guiding her new pupil through a particularly complicated bar that it was fully thirty seconds before she realized the rest of the troupe had fallen completely silent.

“Wait, why did we stop playing?” she demanded. “We weren’t done with the song.”

“Er...Tiranel,” Vanamirë whispered urgently, jerking her head towards the stairs. “We’ve got company.”

Indeed, Tiranel saw that once again they had been joined unexpectedly in the gallery, this time by a tall, handsome man with unfashionably short hair, simply but elegantly dressed. Tiranel was hardly an expert in recognizing Tirion’s upper crust, but she knew immediately at whom she was looking. This could be none other than High Prince Curufinwë, renowned for both his scientific genius and very short temper. She should have stood and bowed, perhaps, but she felt frozen into place.

If Tiranel was shocked, though, it was nothing compared to Laurë, who turned bright red and let the rebec crash onto the floor with a piercing twang. “Father!” he squeaked.

“There you are, my little owl!” the High Prince exclaimed, sweeping the startled little boy into his arms. “I should have known you were up here, the music’s been significantly better for the past few songs. With no disrespect to your new friends,” he added, winking at Tiranel with an unexpectedly kind smile. “But I can recognize my son’s playing from a league away.”

“Your...son,” Tiranel said faintly. 

“Indeed, my second son, Makalaurë. I hope he hasn’t been annoying you. All my children are insatiably curious, I’m afraid.”

“Miss Tiranel is teaching me the rebec,” little Laurë— _ Prince Makalaurë _ , Tiranel realized with a gulp—chirped, nuzzling contentedly against his father’s neck. “We’ve been having such fun. Couldn’t I stay for one more song?”

“Well, I’m not sure. It’s far past when little boys ought to be in bed. And we wouldn’t like to inconvenience Miss Tiranel.”

“No inconvenience at all, Your Grace,” Tiranel said hurriedly. “You are welcome to stay for as long as you’d like. Though of course you must take Laur...Prince Makalaurë downstairs if it’s his bedtime.”

“Hmm.” The Prince frowned down at his son, who looked back with wide, pleading eyes. “Very well, then. One more song. And don’t forget to thank Miss Tiranel and her friends for allowing you to join them.” 

He gently set Makalaurë down, and the lad hopped into Tiranel’s lap, kissing her on the cheek. “Thank you, Miss Tiranel. You and your friends are very kind.”

Tiranel glanced awkwardly at the High Prince—surely it was highly inappropriate for the king’s grandson to be sitting on her lap? But when Prince Curufinwë smiled and nodded at her, she gave Makalaurë a quick squeeze and ruffled his hair. “It’s been my pleasure, dear. Let’s play one more then, shall we?”

 

It was nearly a century before Tiranel saw Prince Makalaurë again. She was vaguely aware, of course, that the High King’s second grandson was now grown up and one of the most well-regarded musicians and poets on the continent, though she thought little about these reports beyond a mild sense of respect. After all, Tiranel had her own art to focus on these days, as well as a husband, a little daughter, and a farm full of goats in the South. There was precious little time to worry about what the royals were up to.

Some ninety years after her visit to the palace, Tiranel found herself in Tirion again, this time not for work but to visit her husband’s stylish and wealthy aunt Wilwaren. With no goats to milk and the rest of her family entirely occupied, she found herself wandering about the Lower Tirion Market, reflecting as she strolled that the city seemed much less oppressive to her now than it had in her youth. Really, after all those years in the country, a bit of hustle and bustle was a welcome change. 

Besides, she had learned over the years that city folk, while occasionally haughty, were generally just as well-meaning as their country equivalents. And so when she noticed the slender, dark-haired young chap at the next stall over shooting interested glances her way, Tiranel knew better than to assume he was planning to pick her pocket. Indeed, she couldn’t help but feel slightly flattered; a happily married lady she might have been, but if young gentlemen were still giving her admiring looks, she was hardly about to complain! 

When the lad glanced up at her again and she met his gaze, he raised his eyebrows, a surprised smile spreading over his face. “My stars, Miss Tiranel?” he said incredulously. “It  _ is  _ you, isn’t it! Incredible! I’ve been hoping to see you for decades.”

Tiranel frowned, trying to place him. “I’m sorry, I’m sure we’ve met, but I can’t quite remember…”

The young man put a hand over his heart dramatically. “I’m  _ wounded,  _ absolutely wounded. And after all this time I’ve spent trying to track you down to say thank you! I blame you  _ entirely,  _ you know. If you hadn’t encouraged me when I was fourteen it’s entirely possible I would have become much more respectable than I am now.”

Tiranel let out a small gasp as realization dawned. “Good heavens. Little Laurë! Or no, forgive me, Prince Makalaurë. Excuse me for not knowing you at once, it’s been some years since I was in the capital.” She bobbed a stiff curtsey, wondering as she did so why every time she interacted with the royal family she managed to be so utterly disrespectful. But how could she be expected to realize that this charming young man was the little boy who had sat on her lap all those years ago?

Prince Makalaurë, fortunately, didn’t seem offended in the slightest. “Well, one can hardly blame you for not knowing me, I like to think that I’ve grown a bit taller in the past ninety years. Though one can’t always tell that when I’m standing next to my elder brother.”

In spite of herself, Tiranel let out a snort of laughter. “You have grown quite a bit, yes. And you’ve gained quite a reputation as well.”

“All lies, except the nastiest rumors, which are perfectly true.” He cocked his head to the side and looked at her with a thoughtful smile. “I really do want to thank you, though. I know we only spent about an hour together, but I’ve always thought of you as one of my favorite teachers. What brings you to Tirion after all these years?”

“I’m visiting my husband’s aunt, as it happens. She is babysitting my daughter and husband for the moment, leaving me with a rare block of free time to wander about the city.”

“You have a daughter!” Makalaurë exclaimed in delight. “Extraordinary. How old is she?”

“Just ten, and she is absolutely amazing. Nearly as much as a prodigy as you were.”

“At music?”

“No, at milking goats! The beasts adore her! All she has to do is scratch them behind the ears and they become as docile as kittens.” Prince Makalaurë dissolved into laughter at this, and after a moment Tiranel joined in, until her sides hurt and her eyes were watering. 

“Listen,” Makalaurë said at last, when they had finally managed to stop chuckling. “Do you suppose your rare block of free time is long enough to have lunch with an old friend? I’ve been working on a project—something entirely new, that I am calling a ‘musical play’—and I would love to discuss it with you. I’m sure you will have loads of brilliant suggestions.”

Tiranel debated with herself for a brief moment, before nodding. “Oh, all right, then. But you must make sure you do something scandalous so I’ll have some interesting gossip to deliver to Aunt Wilwaren when I return.”

“But of course. I’m torn between proposing to a serving girl or challenging her to a duel, but I suppose I could do both to make things really interesting.”

“Let us cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, tell me about this new project you are working on. I don’t know if you’ll have much use for my advice, but I’m excited to hear all the details.

Makalaurë slung a friendly arm around her shoulders, guiding her towards a small tavern on the edge of the square. “Don’t let this go to your head, Tiranel, but you are one of the very few people in Aman whose advice I think is worth a damn.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this nonsense! Here are a few important things, and by "important" I mean "not important at all"
> 
> 1\. Maglor is about the equivalent of six years old here, and yet somehow he is already a huge hipster. Amazing.  
> 2\. If you're picturing Tiranel and Co. as a 1960s folk band like The Mamas And The Papas, you are basically correct.  
> 3\. For some reason it is extremely important to me that Maglor invented musical theatre. I have similar feelings about Feanor and the printing press but we can talk about that later.  
> 4\. Mags' nickname being "little owl" is something I came up with in a previous story and decided to reuse. It's because he has big eyes and never sleeps.   
> 5\. And finally, a rebec is an old-timey violin, and looks like this:  
> [](https://imgur.com/yCJCF1i)  
> If any of you want to get me one for my birthday, I wouldn't say no.


End file.
